This episode is brought to you by Airbnb. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb. Com/host. Hey, everybody. It's time to journey back to SNL in the 2000s, where we discuss the digital short era. I'm Seth Meyers, and I'm talking to The Lonely Island, which is Akeva Schaffer. Hi. Yormit Coney. Hello. And Andy Sandberg. Hey. Hit the theme song.

It's The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers podcast. That's quite a song.

What genre of music would you call that? It's like barbershop quartet. Fifties. Jazz.

Jingle.

Jingle.

Yeah, 50s, trying to sell you shaving cream.

Fifties WAP. Not do WAP, but just WAP.

Fifties WAP.

Yeah, wet ass P.

I don't say the word. Yes. W-a-p.

Yeah, 50s WAP.

'50s WAP.

Yeah. '50s WAP. The original. Yeah, that was a much more difficult WAP to get.

Are you referring to WAP in the '50s or current WAP, 50 years or older.

Oh, interesting. Yeah, that's one for the listeners.

I was saying 1950s.

Like Milf WAP. Yeah. Keeve's always talking about Milf WAP.

Guys, don't give away gold like that on the podcast. We got to make a song.

We got to make the hit song Millflop.

Modern era SNL-ers might be listening to this, and we're just throwing them free short.

Exactly. I like a song where it keeps adding... Oh, man, I'm going to sound like a dumb ass. What is it called when there's a letter for each word, acronym.

An acronym, yeah, for sure.

We can cut out me struggling for it if we feel like it. The song that keeps just adding acronyms. I think we keep it.

People want to get to know the real you.

I feel good that I eventually did get the right word.

You did, and nobody helped, mostly because you were explaining it so badly that I didn't know what word you were looking for.

Yes. But yeah, it's a joke rap, right?

Okay.

Let's start there. Evergreen. I think we can all agree on that.

Joke raps are evergreen. Yeah, man.

It's on topic for today.

Exactly.

It's very on topic for today. All right, so episode 2, we talked about Lettuce, which was the first short that air. Now it is two shows later. It is the Christmas show in 2005. It is even if you remove the digital short, which we're going to talk about at length, a really great show, a very memorable top to bottom fun show. It's the world premiere of Lazy Sunday.

Lazy Sunday, wake up in the late afternoon. Call Parnell just to see how he's doing. Hello, what up, Paul? So, Sandberg, what's crackin'? You thinking what I'm thinking?

Honey up, man, it's happening.

But first, my hook of pangs, I stick it like ducting. Let's hit up Mac Yeah, you're back on some cupcakes. No doubt that bakery's got all that Bob Foster. I love those cupcakes like McAdams loves gossling.

After Lettis, Lazy Sunday was not the next thing you shot.

Correct. Yeah.

Basically, Higgins & Shoe came, said, Whoa, that air, Do It Again. We were immediately out of ideas. We had been at the show maybe two months, and we were like, We got nothing else.

Let us wasn't even our idea, so that's even sadder.

We were out of ideas from the jump, from number one. So we went back to Forte and we were like, What else you got? I guess we had to do another one like this. And he came up with this script for Hey, Odie. And I feel like we'll get to it because eventually it aird. But it was a very direct sequel. It was back on the stoop, same place. To be fair, the one we ended up doing that this episode is about Lazy Sunday also starts on that same stoop. So we were pretty much just doing stoop comedy at this point.

Not only were you out of ideas, you were in the most populous city in America, and you couldn't even find a second stoop.

It was our stoop, though, so we felt safe there.

Yeah, we didn't want to get in trouble. We wanted to save money on locations. We shot in front of Andy and Akeiva's apartment.

Right, because you guys owned that whole Brownstone, right?

Yeah, the rental agreement allowed it to be a shooting location for network TV as well.

That was the stoop where Akeiva and Andy, you guys shared that apartment together, right?

Yeah, five-floor walk-up.

It was like a triangle. If I remember, it was a very oddly-shaped apartment itself.

The kitchen was a triangle, yeah.

Yes, the actual apartment was very weird.

Yeah, You didn't walk in and think, There's deaf two bedrooms here.

And there really weren't. There was like an office. One room was just big enough for the bed.

Did you guys switch off? Because I did that in college. Did you guys rotate?

We did do the college thing of halfway through the year switching rooms. It was so much work.

Yeah, who decorated better? Keeve, obviously.

No, we didn't decorate anything. It's in Lazy Sunday. You can see Andy's bedroom. He was in the bigger bedroom, and it starts with him on the bed. Oh, right. Yeah, that's right. That's his real bed in his real bedroom.

We're going to get to that. Okay, but first of all, we have a lag week because you shoot Paotille, which then airs later in the season. It does not air that week.

No, went to dress, right?

Went to dress.

And literally, Schumacher was like, Maybe try something completely different. Don't just do the same twice in a row.

Right. Now, I do want to point out that it became very iconic, an SNL digital short. This was whose decision that that would be white on black before each of these?

Well, to be fair, we had watched some Adam McKay shorts with Will Farrell. It was just the two of them messing around. I think it's the exact same font, too. It's an SNL digital short. We were like, You know what? We'll use that because we were being told we can't use our own name. No.

I'm going to give the 30-second background on Adam McKay. In his final season, when he wasn't sure he wanted to stay at SNL anymore, when Farrell and McKay were the kings of the show, he made a special deal to be able to make short films. They made a short film that I remember seeing at home and being like, Where did that come from? That was shot on 35 millimeter. That had Ben Stiller. Who else was in it? It was called The Heat is On or something.

H-is-o.

It was about Glenn Frey, right? Look at him.

He looks good, too. I mean, I can't believe it. That guy's done everything.

He's done it all. Miami Vice, Eagles, Miami Vice. It literally looked like a movie. It looked amazing. And then they had burned their entire budget for them. Then they made one, and they called it SNL Digital Short. The point of that is because the digital cameras looked terrible back then. They were standard definition, mini-DV, and they called it Digital Short to let the audience know you're going to see something that does not look broadcast quality. His intro was very different. It had some really edgy rock and roll. It It was like, and S&OP.

It was pretty punk rock.

Yeah, it was letting you know you're seeing something a little punk, a little off the beaten track.

I want to say that it ended with, It's in your head, or something like that. Something very aggressive.

There was ones where it's like, Will Farrell wrestling a stuffed animal of a Doberman pincher, maybe?

Yeah, there was a Doberman attacking him for no reason, I think.

It predates me. I missed him as well. I just remember seeing him.

Those were the last short films that had aired on the show when we showed up besides TV Funhouse. So when we were trying to figure this out, the first thing we did was make a card before Let us that said, A lonely Island Short to try to separate it and be like, this is a different thing. And then we were told that that was not acceptable and that we should not be sneaking in our company on the company dime. I do remember, though, at the end of all that, we were with Lorne and we said, what are we supposed to put at the top then? Just so that people know they're about to see something that doesn't look at the quality of the show. So we just took the words SNL Digital Short from the McKay. I think it was the same font. And we said, What should we do? And he said, Just put it on white over black. And it was Lorne who said it.

Oh, there you go. So you guys go back to the drawing board because Paotille makes it to dress, doesn't air. Shoemaker suggests something different. From where is Lazy Sunday born?

Once again, out of ideas.

Yeah.

I mean, before we got hired, one of the things we had done was make joke raps and make videos for them.

Yeah, taking it back. Taking it all the way back in.

Like the original Lonely Island stuff. That was out of the gate. We were doing stuff where it was us doing our version of Stella, the show Alter Wayne, Michaelene Black stuff. And then the thing that made what we were doing different from that was that we were making joke songs and videos. And whenever we showed people those, they were like, oh, that's something. And people liked the other stuff, too. And it was how it went on the show eventually, which was people liked the stuff that weren't the songs, but they liked the songs the most.

What were some pre-S&L joke songs of yours?

The first one we did when we all lived together in Los Angeles at the actual official Lonely Island, dubbed that Akeiva.

And your landlord there was fine with you calling the apartment Lonely Island. It was just Lauren that wouldn't let you call the shorts that, right? Correct.

Weirdly, our landlord was Lauren, though. He just has a different approach to landlording.

He forgot that he owned the house.

Was it you called them your land, Lauren?

Yeah, my landlord was cool with it. But I made a bunch of beats on our other roommate Matt's BR8 eight track, digital eight track, and we would make just sample songs from records and loop stuff, and then we would make four track beats, and then we'd stay up till 6:00 in the morning drinking and making songs. Our first one was called Kablamo, which was our way of saying a new cool word. When something was cool, it was Kablamo, and when it was not cool, it was not Kablamo. You just won the lottery.

That's Kablamo. You can shit in Dawnerty.

That's Kablamo. You joined a sorority.

That's Kablamo. You lied about the lottery. It was not a great song, but we were only We were 22 years old.

It wasn't a great beat either.

Well, I mean, your arm is selling the shit out of it.

It should be that. That's true. I don't seem very excited about it.

He's given it pace. He's given it enthusiasm.

That awesome preamble where you named the equipment you guys used. People loved it.

That's important. People are like, How do you make beats? They need to know if it was 20 years ago what they'd go and buy to make some simple beats.

You can still get them. I just looked it up online.

The three of us lived together in that apartment, and there was a fourth guy, Matt, which is Matt Betanelli-Olpen. I will say we knew him from home and we knew him from college. He directed the Scream movie from last year. Oh, my God. That's pretty cool that he found his own path to success.

God love him.

We went to elementary school together. Me, Matt Betnelly-Olpen, and Chelsea Peretti were all in the same class in elementary school in Oakland.

Well, and he was also in the early videos, and so was Chester. We had Chester Tam as well.

Chester is in Hot Rod, and he's also in Scream.

Look at that.

It was a bigger group, and then it windled to this. But we made all sorts of... We made one called Stork Patrol that we made a big dumb puppet for that was us being in love with a bird.

Then Just Two Guys was the other main one that we did in 2004, right before getting the show. Hello.

Welcome to the party.

Hi. I've never met you before.

I know.

Just Two Guys and we're having a good time. Having a good time. Having a good time. Just Two Guys and we're having a good time. Having a good time.

Who's the first person to suggest the first seed that becomes Lazy Sunday?

Well, we had made another song called The Heist 2 later. It was me and Akeva, and it was a very aggressive style beat, but a very mundane thing about I've gotten broken up with, and I'm very upset about it, and I go over to his house for solace and friendship, but it's us rapping very aggressively about something very shitty.

Yo, we should start a book club.

Yo, son, I hear you talking. How about Sunday afternoons right after speed walking?

That's a date, but I know that ain't the reason for you calling. No doubt Best friends got to tell each other their secrets.

Best friends got to tell each other their secrets is a great line. That is very good.

It is a great line.

It's quality writing.

And true.

In terms of ripping ourselves off, there's even a When later we were having tea, and he says, This tea is delicious. What'd you say it was? And we go, Chamomile, motherfucker, which is just snack attack, motherfucker, from-Is it caffanated 'cause?

Then we're talking about how we don't want to have caffeine anymore. Anyway, it's Pretty lame.

We should clarify, you're talking about before SNL? Yes. Pre-snl, Kev and Yorm had made a song called The Heist that they never shot a video for. We never did a video for.

Yeah, it was just an MP3 on our website.

And we had been fans of Parnell's update feature, Raps, where he would go super hard. And we were like, Well, we're here with Parnell. We should do something that's a joke rap with Parnell since they want us to use cast. And he's the only other cast member that we know has done funny rap stuff, and we wanted to put something together. So then we were like, Well, what's funny about Andy and Parnell rapping? We were like, Oh, we should do something like The Heist, which was one of our favorite songs that Kevon Yorm had made.

We were also super worried about stepping on Toes. Because he had done that Brittany Spears rap and the other one, we were like, really didn't want to come out there being like, We do raps and steal his bit. And so we were also just protecting our reputation at the show by being like, We love those raps, and they were super funny, but we also were just like, We didn't want to be known as the guys that steal anything, comedy-wise.

It's also so funny to think about Further pointing out how much we do not think of ourselves. Ourselves as rappers. No rapper would be like, Well, he raps, so I shouldn't.

Also, no rapper is like, I'm not stepping on the O. G. Chris Parnell's toes.

That's how we felt I'm not good about it, though.

In our minds, it was like, Well, he's the one who does raps on the show. That's his territory, so we would have to include him if we were going to do that.

We're always pretty concerned with that.

Luckily, once we left SNL, everyone was like, Hey, there were already people that did a lot of raps. We better not do any. There hasn't actually been one on the show since we left.

Yeah, that's right. There's not a single comedy rap since. Now, guys, it was not your fault. You didn't know it. I had had four years to establish it. I had done a comedy rap before.

Tell us what it was.

Please.

I did a comedy rap in Chicago. We shot it on video cameras. It was a minor Chicago hit in the comedy circles. Me and Cace Clay and my friend Pete Gross, and it was called Nudels in the Pot. It was Beastie Boys style rap about a Thai restaurant called Nudels in the Pot. Nudels in the Pot. Oh my God, my God. Show me what you got. My God, my God. It's sushi. No, it's not. My God, my God. Nudels in the Pot. My God, my God.

Nudels in the Pot makes Because you love that Thai restaurant.

We did.

It sounds like a precursor to DAS Racist's, Tacobel, KFC, whatever that one is.

It was a precursor to a lot of things, but most importantly to you guys. The thing about it is.

So I was ripping you off.

I just went back to Chicago and did stand up, and Pete and Kees Claim came, and we did it live on stage. Wow. That's great. It was super exciting. But in the preamble to it, I went at you guys pretty hard.

Can you remember some of the stuff you said?

Yeah, when you were talking about how we ripped you off.

Yeah, it was like you guys were the Elvis that stole music. Right.

So you were the original.

So it was like, Motherfuck Andy Samberg and John Wayne.

That is so tight. Wow.

Now, I will say that one of the things about noodles in the Pot that became very hard when I saw the runaway success of Lady Sunday. Nudels in the Pot was five minutes long. Right. And so you realized you guys had a good eye for what the show needed.

We already knew that our songs were better, shorter. We'd made enough stuff in LA to know that shorter was better.

We've said this before, but we knew that joke rap suck.

We still do know that, actually.

Yeah. And that was one of the main debates we had the week of Lazy Sunday. We were like, Should we try one? They suck, though. Yeah. That's right. As an art form, they're bad, and we don't want to be responsible for making them more popular. We don't want people to think we think they're good. They're a cheat, and they're lame, and almost all musical comedy is. We literally were saying these things out loud. When you see a comic pick up a guitar, unless they're Tenacious D, you have to be as good as Tenacious D to make it worth it. Otherwise, don't It's weird that we're known for something that we hate.

Yeah. Hey, you don't hate that money, though, do you, Yorm? What's your change?

Where's those sound effects?

I cannot stress to those of you not on Zoom how close Andy got to the microphone to say that. All three of you are uniquely different and good rappers. You have good voices for it.

Again, I want to just preface it by saying we're fake rappers and we don't take this seriously. When you're around a real rapper, there's a real difference because they don't do a billion takes.

Right. They probably do a fair amount of takes, though, right?

Real dudes can just bang it out. It's pretty impressive.

So you basically have come to the conclusion. Now you've decided you and Parnell are going to do a rap together.

And had that conversation go, Keeve, when we asked him, Hey, Parns, do you want to do a rap with us?

I think he just was like, Oh, wow, sure. Is that right?

Do you want me to set you up, Andy? Hey, Parnsey, we're going to do a rap. You want to join us?

All right. Sounds good. And that was the end of the conversation. That sounds good.

You pende it, though, completely on your own, the three of you? Oh, yeah.

In our little room.Yeah..

Yeah, Yorm whipped up the beat.

When we were doing it, because it was hard and I was really nervous, that like, fucking Barnell is waiting and we're going to do this thing. I remember making the beat in the room with these guys because this was the first time that computers were fast enough to be able to...

What computer?

It was an Apple.

Tell us about the processing power and the model number.

Yeah.

Anyway, it wasn't going to be all right. But I was making the beat on reason, and I was really nervous because I was just like, Oh, God, we got to get this. It's got to be good. I was running through the reason presets, and I found that little refrain thing. I was like, This is pretty fucking cool. Then just put a little breakbeat to it, and then everyone's like, Yeah, it's good. We started recording in there.

Questlove complimented that beat one day later on. He did. That's high praise if Questlove compliments a beat.

I was going to say the interesting thing about being nervous about Parnell and his take on it is Parnell was the performer that would literally do whatever you asked him to do without hesitation. If you wrote in a sketch, he had to run through a wall, he was the guy I feel like college football coaches want to have on their team. You would never ask a question. He would play hurt. He would never say after the fact, anything that would make you feel like you hadn't done your job.

Yeah, he's all mad. Yeah.

In retrospect, there was no need to be nervous. But this was early days. What show was this for us? Our sixth, seventh?

Probably a little bit late. 8 or 9 because it's a Christmas show.

We had started It in October. The first episode, though, was October first. We've only been there 10 weeks, and those aren't all episodes.

I do remember being confident because we had done this stuff before, and I was like, Hey, we're actually doing something we know how to do. We were in our element and certainly didn't think it was going to pop off or anything, but at least we were like, Hey, this is cool. We're doing our thing, and maybe it'll work. Who knows? Also knowing that every time we wrote a line for Parnell, that it was going to be super funny because he sells it so hard.

Yeah, you guys were going so hard on it. Then when it was done, it did feel like, Oh, yes.

When we first recorded it, it was just relentless all the way through. There were no dance breaks. Then Steve Higgins came in to check in on us, and we played it for him. He was like, That's way too fast for the audience. You have to put in breaks to give people a time to laugh and wrap their head around it. And we were like, Okay, Steve.

I will say that's one of the maddest times I've ever been at SNL. I was so furious about it.

At that note, really?

I loved how it sounded. It just ran through.

So you guys weren't rapping faster. It was just that there was none of those moments where you were bobbing your heads in the back of the taxi.

Higgins, I think, correctly asked us to make it slow down so that the audience had a chance to catch their breath and decide they liked it or not.

I think he was right for the live audience.

Musically, I disagreed with it and still do. But I would certainly not say it was the most mad I ever got at the show, Yorm. I got so much more mad than that. Yeah, but that was our first thing.

Jorm's not saying he was right to be that mad. He's just saying that's what happened. His instinct was just like, No, you just I want that raw uncut.

I was furious. I was really furious.

It's fine.

Yeah.

Because you worked there for maybe six more years and you never talk to Higgins again.

That's right. I never did.

No, but Higgins was 100% right because if you watch it and you hear the audience, the whole first verse, the sense is, What is this? And then you give them that break, and the whole second verse is them saying, We love this. They're listening to the second verse as huge fans because you've sold them.

He was totally right.

I will also say that the dance break, once we were like, No, it's like a remix. You can throw in another beat at the same tempo, and we'll think of stupid Beatles style animation.

Those things got the correct laugh, too, which was that they knew we knew they sucked, which was nice.

I think by the end of making it, we were fine with it.

Yes, for sure.

The Lonely Island and Seth Meyer's podcast is supported by AirBnB. Hey, Yorm. Yes. I want to tell you real quick about a trip I took at an Airbnb in Pittsburgh. We got there. My family was there. You know we love sports, my family.

You guys are nuts for sports.

The personal touches were really nice. There were Old Stealers newspaper articles framed, Pirates articles framed, but also a big old picture of Mr. Rogers and another big old picture of Wiz Khalifa.

That is everything Pittsburgh. That is a black and yellow AirBnB.

It made our visit very personal. This is just a shout out to anybody who might be listening thinking, Hey, my home has personal touches. People who visited my town might want to stay there. You might as well just go over to Airbnb and see what your hosting opportunities are, and you can enjoy it as much as I enjoyed it. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb. Com/host. This show is sponsored by Better Health. Hey, Yorm. Yes. We talk a lot on this podcast about a very special time in our life where we were just drained, emotionally, physically, on empty.

Are you talking about right now? Because that's where I'm at, Seth.

Well, I was talking about the past. The past is often present with you, Jorm. It is.

That's what I'm always saying.

I think a lot of people we knew back in the day, and a lot of those same people now have used therapy as a helpful tool for those days when you're feeling drained, when you feel like you have no energy for the things that are important to you. And better help is a great option for anyone who's looking for somebody to talk to. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists at any time for no additional charge.

Seth, if they wanted to talk to you personally and just get it all out, could they?

No, I am not available nor licensed, but Unfortunately, Betterhelp is. Find your social sweet spot with Betterhelp. Visit betterhelp. Com/island today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P. Com/island. We should talk a little about the filming of Lazy Sunday.

What camera do we use, Keith?

Oh, no. I think it was a Panasonic or a Sony.

Wait, I want to say YouTube, Supreme. Let's also not forget Magnolia Cupcakes. Yeah. I mean, arguably put them on the map and there was no appreciation for Magnolia. So you guys were at the ground floor of a lot of different things and didn't manage to monetize it at all.

No, no, no. We did not get paid.

Hey, over the years, have you heard from Gosling or McAdams? Never have. No. Interesting. I would have thought, not that they needed to be put on the map, but I feel like that's a real iconic place. When you get name dropped in a rap song, I think that that is a real tribute, especially a catchy one that people remember the lyrics to. So Magnolia Cupcakes, how did that come about? And what was the reaction from Magnolia people over the years?

It was in our neighborhood, and we were trying to do everything where we could just walk around and shoot stuff. And I remember we shot a couple of shots outside, and then a woman who worked there came outside and told told me that she had called the owner. We were not allowed to be taping. We couldn't be showing anything. We were like, actually, we're outside on the street, so we're allowed to do anything on the street. We actually had asked the NBC lawyers, if we're on the streets, can anybody say anything to us? And they were like, no, you're fine. If you're on streets with no tripods touching the ground, you can shoot anywhere in New York. And the owner said, We need to take your tapes.

Really?

Yeah. And we were like, Yeah, we're not giving you our tapes. We're just on the street. So we're so sorry. We will stop filming now. And then we left. And then years later, I think we told this story in the press, and we started getting big magnolia. Do you remember ever coming to one of our sets later on, years later, where there would be hundreds of cupcakes and a huge thing of banana pudding? Yes. Because they started sending us free magnolia just to our shoots. So they tried to make good on it. They heard this story and went, oh, okay. And they tried to make it.

Credit where credits do. I think they went a couple of weirdos, no offense, or outside your place of business filming. You might not know it's going to be a hit comedy wrap that will endure for 20 years.

Also, they were already a smashed success.

Yeah, that's true.

We name-check them because we knew people would know what we were talking about. Yeah. A lot of people have been like, do so many people go get Magnolia now because of you guys? I was like, probably more people go stand outside Magnolia and do the poses we were doing and take pictures than actually buy the cupcakes, but probably a little of both.

I will say we also didn't look very professional. It was Akeiva holding a video camera, me playing this little beat back, which was maybe annoying because there was a bunch of cursing, too, in front of their store, and Parnell and Andy, and that was it. Yes.

When they're wrapping in the back of that cab, the whole crew is in that cab. I was able to fit in one cab ride.

Were you in the back seat, Keev? Because I feel like I was in the front seat playing the beat next to the driver.

I think I sat in the front seat, passenger seat, and I'm shooting through the little window back at Andy and Parnell, and you're on the floor by their feet.

Maybe I'm hiding then. Yes.

You were ducked down under us. Keeve, should we say frapping Frapping, anytime we're talking about times when we were performing our lyrics.

I think that's fair.

Frapping is a term we've coined for fake rapping.

Oh, interesting.

So people don't think we're actually rapping. We're frappers.

Oh, that's good. So you were frapping.

We were in the back of the cab frapping.

Yeah, while they were frapping back there.

Was the choice of Chronicles of Narnia just based on the fact that it was a movie that was out then? Or did you think it was just good frap scantion?

We were trying to make it topical for you.

Yeah, that's as topical as we get.

Did you Did you ever see that film?

Yeah. Well, it has the word chronic in it, too. So it led to- That's what I was wondering.

I mean, it was of the time, but I was wondering if chronic helped it.

What you wanted to, Chris. Second hack, mother. The chronic life of Narnia. Can you guys name one actor in Chronicles of Narnia? The Lion.

I'm sorry, an actor. Yeah, Aslan. Yeah. Who is the voice of Aslan?

I'm guessing Liam Neeson.

You got it. Nice job.

Whoa, that's good.

Who else could it have possibly been?

Was James McAvoy the little half goat guy?

Oh, yeah, he's the goat guy.

He's Mr. Thomas. Oh, man, this is great. This is going to be really fun. These are other movies that came out on the same day, and will you just wrap the titles?

Shit.

Oh, please. Frap. Will we frap the titles? We'll frap them. Thank you.

Memoirs of a geisha.

Please don't make us do this.

Don't do this.

Us.

All right. This is a bust. Talk more about your improv background.

We hate fake raps. I don't know how we can make it any clearer.

Freestyling a frap? Now, that's a bad idea.

Anyways, what about the bodega you shot in?

It was right around the corner from me and Keith's apartment.

Did you close it up? Did you ask for permission?

No, we just asked if we could get behind the counter for a second.

They said yes, and they were cool.

We looked like film students. It was just the four of us. Emily Heller, which is Yorma's sister-in-law, who's a stand-up comic, is the woman behind the counter selling stuff. I guess she was just in town visiting and just came by at that moment. We were like, Hey, get behind there.

It was before she had even started comedy, though, right?

No, she was doing stand-up at the time.

But she must have been 20 years old. To backtrack, just because we've talked about this thing so much, but we do the exact same way as Let us, where we borrowed the camera from Maggie, Bill's wife at the time, and we just ran out on the street, and it cost the cab ride and two mini-DV tapes.

We did buy little speakers that you could put into an iPod because iPods were popular back then. We We got a $15 speaker that we were doing playback on. And as he was walking down the street, I would hold his backpack that probably had our supplies in it and videotapes, and then play the song while we were walking down the street. So we don't look professional at all. And we would We would either tell people it was for SNL if that helped us or just claimed to be film students when it helped us.

Most of the time, we would say we were NYU students.

Shout out to New York City for being amenable to the idea of helping out a couple of students.

The movie theater is the UCB theater.

That's That's right. Thanks, Polar. There you go.

I remember showing it to Sudeckis when it was done, but it hadn't gone to dress, just in our writers room, and him very nicely being like, This is going to blow their minds. I can't wait for this there. It was before we were very confident in it. We were just like, Yeah, this feels like it came together pretty good.

This was before we even had an edit room, right, Keith? We edited in that room.

Yeah, we were just on our writers room. I just remember him being very generous with his compliment and it giving me confidence and feeling genuinely like, Oh, wow, maybe this will be good.

Now, Schumacher told me that Robert Smigal, who in this show, and one of the reasons this is a really great show when you look back at the rundown, did one of my favorite Smigal pieces ever, this claymation piece called Christmas Time for the Jews.

Well, it happens every year on Christmas Eve.

All the happy Christian people take their leave.

Yeah, the streets are deserted, and that's big news. It's Christmas time for the Jews.

Yeah, When you talk about Timeless, it is a perfect piece of comedy because the observation it makes are really timeless observations about Jewish people at Christmas time. And he knew he had a hit with that, and he wasn't wrong. And yet when Lazy Sunday aird, he said to Schumacher something along the lines of, Well, that changes everything. Because it was. Anybody who worked there and saw what it looked like, because it did look gritty, right? It didn't look super glossy or anything. And yet the audience went for it in a way that you could tell they were going to continue to be there for things like it.

That was one of the things that allowed it to stand out, too, was that the year that we got there was the first year, I believe, that SNOW went HD. So it looked much cleaner and more polished than it had in previous years. And then we weirdly stood out even more by it not looking polished. So it really felt like it was its own thing in the middle of the show.

Yeah, the quality drop.

Yeah, the quality drop really helped it.

And we tried to keep that going throughout all the years, just the distinct quality drop. Our stuff would start. It is funny how over the course of being there, SNL Digital Short went from being like, Hey, this is going to look bad, just go with it to, Hey, this can be shot with movie cameras and be actually the best-looking thing in the show. That's just about technology. I'd like to do a small Yorm style list of the cameras we used throughout the X01. I'm just kidding. I'm not going to do it.

Seth, the Smigal thing bears looking at because it shouldn't go unnoted that Smigal was on our hero list. Coming in, we were like, Holy shit, that's Robert Smigal. We knew about his reputation. He's one of those legendary SNL writers. We knew he had a relationship with Sandler and all those guys that were our main cast growing up. Tv Funhouse, obviously, was massive for us. We were like, That's somebody doing actual edgy dope shit. When he came up to us after that show and was like, You guys just did something great, we were all super geeking.

Yeah. The other thing about both of those pieces of content, his was a super catchy song as well. Yeah. You know, wonderfully performed.

Who was the singer on it?

Darlene Love. You know, again, you guys had Parnell, but Michael had Darlene Love.

His is also like, expertly crafted stop motion. It's like beautiful sets, beautifully animated.

Well, he'd been doing them for a while, so he had carte blanche. Yes.

To your point, though, Seth, Because it was such a good show, I was very excited that it aired, but it's not like the moment it aired. I was like, Oh, that's going to really pop off.

No. In fact, Jorm, I would argue that we were way more excited that enemy mind was airing our enemy mind sketch.

Have you even said it was Jack Black hosting Who Was The Musical Guest?

Yeah, so Jack Black hosted musical guest Neil Young.

That's a banger.

That's a good show.

That is a banger. You guys have an enemy mind sketch.

Hey, Steve. Yeah, Glark. So I know it's been a while since our ships crashed into each other during the space war between our races.

Yeah.

And I know we've been stranded on this moon with no one but each other to be friends with for a long time now. Right. And odds are no one's ever going to find us out here. Sure. And it could be just me and you until we die. What's your point, Glark? Well, in light of all that, I think there's something maybe you should know. Okay, shoot. Oh, gosh. How do I put this? I have both male and female genitalia. So just something to think about. By far your best live sketch to this point as well.

What?

Yeah. Oh, to this point. To this point.

It got so offended.

Yeah, Show 9.

Now I get it.

We should note that this is based on a Dennis Quaid, Louis Gosset Jr.

Film? Yes, it's a sci-fi movie called enemy mind that I was super into.

That maybe came out 15 years before you wrote the sketch? Yeah.

Seth's favorite thing that I would do, which was come up with ideas based on super old sci-fi movies.

This will be a recurring theme.

Yes.

But enemy mind, and I should note, I also had a soft spot in my heart for enemy mind. I think it's a super cool movie. You had a soft spot. I'm just going to say what I remember about the film. Dennis Quaid and Louis Gusset Jr, who's an alien, crash land on the same planet. They're like warring.

Yeah, they're enemies.

During a war, yeah, that they're on the opposite sides of. Yeah.

Each one of them is like, You're my enemy. Exactly. The other one is like, No, you're mine. Correct. Then they end up befriending each other over a long period of time. Yes.

More than befriending.

Well, no, because in the movie, Louis Gonset Jr. Has both male and female sex organs, correct?

I don't even know if that's what it is or if it's just that in his species that the males just give birth. But it's a late reveal that he is about to have a kid and then does, and then they raise the kid together.

Or I think he dies, and Quaid raises the kid without it.

Oh, yeah.

That would make sense.

I should note, this film alone has a comedy premise, and yet you guys had a heightened.

Can I say also, you don't need to be familiar with the film to enjoy the sketch. That's part of the brilliance of the sketch is that it stands alone.

Yes, I should note that as well. This sketch did very well. I'm willing to venture that not more than 10 people in the audience had seen the original film.

That one was also going back to the well because we had made in 2004, the year before, a very cheap pilot presentation. I think $70,000 was the full budget for a sketch show for Fox. On it, one of the sketches we did was this enemy mind style sketch, Yeah, called Glerk, named after Andy's character, and it started Yorma and Andy. There was a full video, and Jack Black was buddies with Dan Harmon and would come to channel 101s, not that it had air to channel 101, where he, I think he had even seen it, or did we just show it to him? Do you guys remember?

I think he had seen it.

Well, he was in the pilot presentation.

Right. He was gracious enough to even come introduce the pilot presentation.

Yes. We drove up to where he was recording some Tenacious D shit, and we put him in a George Washington costume and shot him for the intro of the whole thing. Right.

That's how he had seen it. Yes.

Bless that guy's heart. He's the greatest.

That was when they were making the Tenacious D album with the Dust Brothers. So that was, speaking of like, Smigal style, like meeting your heroes. We were walking in on the Dust Brothers who did Paul's Boutique. Yeah, holy shit. Working with Jack and Kyle on the Tenacious D official record.

I will say as a preamble to enemy mind, because Jorm and I were in it together, this was a similar thing to the Parnell thing of we talked about it a lot of like, Hey, are you okay with me asking Jack to be your part because that's fucked up because we have it recorded as us, and we love that version. But also we're in our first half of our first season, and we're completely out of ideas already.

Well, and Jack was very nice about that, too. He was like, Are you sure?

No, but it's your arm. I remember. Yeah.

Then afterwards, he was like, You did it better. I was like, I don't know about that, but thank you.

Jack Black was the host, and you weren't the only ones to take advantage of it this show who If you had a piece you loved that maybe hadn't worked with previous hosts, but it was a comedy, lovers delight, your final Hill, Mary, would be, Let's throw it into the Jack Black show.

Jack, I also would put Jona Hill in that category. He saved some really funny shit that never got picked, but he was like, No, no, we have to do this.

They were the hosts, by the way, if you told them that, if you said, Yeah, I've tried this a bunch of times, and it hasn't gotten through, they're both the most polite guys. But then they'd be in the room with Lauren, and I think in the most charming way saying, Oh, we got to, though. We got to do that one.

Jona did that right for Jackie Snad and Clancy T. Baclerat, right? The Model T cars one.

He did. He willed that into existence.

That's fantastic. These tended to be episodes on Christmas, too, because they would save some fantastic person. And then Christmas always became a real thing for us of like, Fuck, now we got to do another good one on Christmas.

Well, we should note that Lauren has a very famous speech that he does right before the Christmas show and right before the last show of the year, between Dress and Air, it's his Friday night lights hyping up the room, except the complete opposite energy, where he says something along lines of, Well, you're about to have three weeks off. You're going to see a lot of friends and family. And I would want to talk about the last show, and wouldn't it be nice if they had something nice to say about it? Then I guess we were supposed to be like, I'm going to rewrite the whole sketch.

Let's go write some comedy. Freedom.

I want to talk about Lazy Sunday. I have more questions about it, but we're all about tangents here. There are two sketches I remember a great deal from this show. The first one takes place in a Sabarro. Emily Spivey wrote it. It's one of my favorites. Less a Christmas scene than a winter scene. What are your memories of it?

Jack is playing a guy with his family, extended family, I think. I want to say aunts and uncles, but I could be wrong. They're out on the town, and the wind is so crazy that they have to take refuge in a Sabarro, but people keep opening the door.

Oh, honey, great. You've got a seat.

Oh, and there's room for the stroller.

This is so great. It's so busy in here.

Oh, I'm exhausted.

Oh, no. Good Lord. Hold that baby. Hold that baby.

Somebody help me.

It's a very straightforward premise, executed to perfection, and it just keeps escalating and escalating. I remember it destroying at every phase, like table, rehearsal, dress, and air.

I feel like Dratch is definitely on wires at some point in this sketch. It gets lifted laterally. She's the grandma, and she gets lifted up.

The grandma is lived over there, and they're holding on to her by the leg.

Also, there were two writers at SNL in this era who are A+ Hall of Fame writers, James Anderson and Emily Spivey, both of whom you would often say, How did you come up with that idea? Emily would say, Y'all, it happened to me.

That's why it had to be in a Sparrow because that's what happened.

The fact that that's known as Sparrow is really funny because it has nothing to do with Sparrow. In terms of the argument of fair use and satire and we can use the name brand Sparrow because we're poking so much fun at it, you're like, there is no legal argument that you could make that would make it okay that it's Sparrow.

I would argue there is actually parody purposes because because I think the joke works better because one would only go into a Sabarrow to escape a Wintergale.

I guess we can cross Sabarrow off our sponsor's list. Shit.

No, wait, we got our first live ad.

We can win them back. I was defending them.

Let's run back the things we hate, guys. Joke raps. Sabarro. We're really pating ourselves into a corner here.

Also, Sabarro wants to be our sponsor, but they want us to do a rap about him. Done.

Take it, Keeve.

All right, my next thing. Spelling Bee was a sketch that had been at the table multiple times. This is a Will Forte classic, but it was a weirdly-shaped sketch. It never had an ending that felt particularly satisfying. This is when Jack Black came in and just literally saved the day because it was the sketch as written, which is Chris Parnell is conducting a Spelling Bee.

What was the word? Business. The word is business.

The word is business. Then it is the perfect will forte performance.Business. B-r-d-t-f-k-l-m-g-h-r-k-w-t-f-n-y-l-k-p-q-w-q-r-t-d-f.

F, P, L, M, K, Q, K, W, Q, Q, Q, Q, Jack and Kyle.

Spelling Bee. Then the reason Spelling Bee finally aird was Jack Black walked out in front of it and played a song.

Yeah, he rewrote a song for it.

Like a tenacious D-style song.

Yeah, it's like lights down on the sketch, lights up on Jack and Kyle. A test of wit and wordlery, the ancient sport of Kings and Queens.

To make it on the Spelling Bee scene, you've got to be the cream.

And it just It just felt like an ending. It was a really hot show. It was a hot show, and you didn't know what was going to be the thing that popped from it. Christmas time from the Jews, Sabarros, Lazy Sunday, Spelling Bee. And yet I feel like within a day, the world spoke and said Lazy Sunday was it.

Well, a big thing happened, though, which is that it was also on a site called YouTube that we hadn't heard of before. That's right. So it did have a second life after that.

Up until this moment, you basically were still in the old style of SNO where something would air, and if you wanted to see it again, you were waiting for a rerun. And then the next morning, my brother called us and was like, Hey, check it out. Someone else put it online because server space was so expensive and video servers were so expensive. The idea somebody else would put a video online for you was unheard of because you would have to do it yourself and pay for it. And it was YouTube, and it was the first time any of us went to YouTube.

It really was.

It ended up being the first time most people went to YouTube.

And then it had a whole other life, though, too, because it became part of that story of the rise of YouTube. When anybody had to write about YouTube, we invariably got mentioned with a couple of other videos that were on there. If NBC hadn't taken it off, at the time, it was one of the top watched things because it got like 5 million views.

But very quickly, it got 5 million views. Because I think you're right. There were obviously the people all four of us were before we were on SNL where you would watch it and then you'd wait for the rerun to watch it again. Maybe you had a friend who recorded SNL, and so you had it on a videotape.

We recorded on VHS so that we could rewatch stuff.

Yeah, exactly. But then you would have to literally know a person and go to their house or dupe a tape. Literally, I'm explaining ancient history. Now, you would call up and be like, It's online. And then you'd go to YouTube. Everyone was like, Yeah, we fucking know, old man. But this was the tipping point.

You got to understand, there was no TikTok. We got a lot of people telling us over that holiday. It was actually, hilariously, very true to the Lorne speech that he would give. His speech came, too.

He was right.

Which was over the holiday break, people were watching it, and we all kept getting told via text and call from people being like, Hey, my whole family just sat around and watched your video. It was really a moment in that way, which was cool. Yes.

The tragedy was that we got to New York, we were from California, we didn't have big winter coats, and Andy had really searched around and at the Supreme store had found a coat he was very proud of and very excited to wear.

Yeah, I love that jacket.

And had spent a lot of money on it, I assume. Supreme is not cheap. No. And then he wore it in the video. And then if he wore that jacket out in public, after that, he was recognizable as the character from Lazy Sunday.

This was the collateral damage of Lazy Sunday that no one likes to talk about.

You remember that guy that used to be on TV who wore a green coat with question marks all over it? Not the Riddler, but the guy. I know who you're talking about.

Like the finance guy?

Yeah, it was like a way to save money and stuff. You know that Nike shoes, Apple computer, and even H. Ross Perot have used government money programs to help make their millions, and you can, too. I once was going down the street in New York City, right by Madison Square Garden, and he was pulling a rolling suitcase trying to tail a cab. And couldn't hail a cab. And another guy in one of the best New York things I ever heard, passed him and said to his buddy, I guess he doesn't have all the answers.

Oh my God.

That's a really funny thing to say about a guy with question marks all over his Coast.

He clearly has questions.

Yeah, that's true.

I will note our friend Matt Murray, who we will mention a lot, too. Tacotown's Matt Murray, is the one who showed me the Supreme store when it was just a dinky little store before it became the biggest thing ever. And we've talked often how Supreme blew up because of Lazy Sunday, and we never got our due.

Yeah, and also YouTube. Yeah.

Yeah, YouTube and Supreme.

Credit for both of those.

Those are two hills that we're going to die on. Here's a question, Seth. When that's happening, because I have so much perspective on everything now, but at the time, we're shot out of a canon like, Whoa, this crazy, incredible stuff is happening to us. Did everyone there hate us?

That's a great question.

Let me speak from my own perspective. I would say, with no hesitation, I was deeply jealous of how successful that was. But at the same time, I already loved you guys a ton. I found you to be great guys from the minute you started the show. So even though it was early times, you guys came by it so honestly. It was a thing that you were doing before you were on the show. You had also made a really good faith effort to do the show the way the show was done and then found your way into the version that succeeded. So you guys were hard working and also super supportive of everybody else. With that said, let me answer that shorter. Yes, everybody hated you.

Great.

Thank you. Thank you.

And that was great. I mean, you did have a break and then you came back in our next episode. We're going to talk about Life After Lazy Sunday because I'm being sincere. It definitely changed things. But it also put a huge pressure on you guys to meet or top it, right? Did you feel that right away? Yes.

I didn't feel it because I was a fucking rock star.

Okay.

Interesting.

I was just going to say the opposite, that maybe part of the reason people didn't hate us right away is because we were so stressed out and worried all the time. Yes. As opposed to celebrating.

Yeah, I think we really wore that on our sleeves.

Yeah, we were pretty self-hating.

I mean, for the next six years, we were sick and sleep-deprived.

It's true. You guys never acted like cock of the walk, to quote Cowbell.

Just because I don't know this would be relevant next episode. I mean, we left LA in September And then I remember there was that week before the show came back in the first week of January, when people are back at work in LA, when our agents were like, Come to LA and do meetings, where all of a sudden we went from unemployed $70,000 budget pilots to meeting with studio heads at movie companies. We did a round of high-level meetings based just off Lazy Sunday and that New York Times article.

That stuff is the stuff that when other people get that now, I'm like, Oh, everyone must have hated us.

But we didn't go back SNL and tell everybody.

You can feel that, especially internally in the entertainment business, when people are being forced on you a lot because they have a hot thing and you're like, I don't know. If I wanted them, I'd ask for them. I guarantee you that there was a lot of that happening with us and people being like, I don't fucking care about these guys. They made their little rap.

It's interesting, though, because honestly, when I think about the show, and I've said this many times, where I'm like, Oh, when we first got the show, there was a documentary that had come out about SNL, and it was how cutthroat it was and how people don't laugh at the table. When we got there, I was like, There's a lot of people here. It felt like a new era of like, No, people are really supportive. We were there with a bunch of people that felt like Bill was such a fan of comedy. I just felt like our class was so supportive. But it's a very good point, though. People couldn't have been that psyched.

We had a very special group through our time there in that everyone genuinely were fans of one another's and thought everyone was funny and really... I was excited to see what everyone else was going to do. I feel like that was their pervasive vibe, which helped.

Yeah. I I think there is something to be said for the output at the show for those years was really high. I think everybody who worked there got a little bit better because there was that sense of, okay, there was no coasting anymore. When a lot of really talented people came in and they were all really hungry and they all worked really hard. I always look back at the time and feeling really lucky to have been around that because it definitely forced you to improve.

Sure. But I mean, even going into that night, we were just talking about how great of an episode that was on Christmas.

Yeah.

That speaks to what I'm getting at, which was everyone was killing. Everyone was really funny.

Yeah.

Now we're going to turn to Seth's Corner and talk a little bit about what Seth wrote that week. Here we go.

Seth's Corner, you're all invited. Seth's Corner, It's happening right now. Take it away, Seth.

Seth, what did you write that week? We don't know.

I wrote the cold open. It was Dick Cheney. Darryl Hammond as Dick Cheney as a Santa Claus in the Mall. Every Christmas, I like to meet with local children and see what presents they they want. So without further ado, let's hear what they have to say for themselves. Hi, Santa. Hello, little girl. What do you want for Christmas? I want an American Girl doll and a Barbie print and polished head with manicure hands. But All I really want for Christmas is the safety and well-being of my family. Unfortunately, Santa can't guarantee that. Of that time, I think it was a pretty good cold open.

I remember thinking it was good.

I def walked off being All right, out of the gates pretty strong. Let's see what you have, rest of the show.

This is a good one.

Alexi and I once went to the Vancouver Winter Olympics, and we went to see figure skating. When you go to early figure skating, you don't realize this when you watch Home, but they just put the people early on who have no chance of winning. The reason they have no chance of winning is they don't do jumps that have a high level of difficulty. So you watch, and again, to you, it's the greatest ice skating you've ever seen. It's and you're like, That's the gold medal. Then an hour later, there are people doing 50 better flips, and you're like, Oh, those first people super sucked. That's how I felt that night about my dick chain.

When you work there, you live for political sketches that are a little higher concept.

Just goofier. I think you were probably a kid in it, I'm guessing, who was standing on his lap.

Yeah, anytime there was a kid, that was me. A teen or a kid.

Yeah, I bet you, Polar, probably draft got out there. .

Sounds about right.

But yeah, so That's, you know. Seth's corner, look, do I hold my head up? Sure. Do I appreciate that no one's talked about it ever since? I do.

And does it go on the Seth's corner best of? It doesn't.

My nightmare would be, you have to do the cold open. You're writing it this week. Yeah. That's so hard and so out of our wheelhouse.

Were you there when I said, Hey, we're going to do a new thing? Because nobody liked writing monologs. Two writers will draw their names out of a hat. You have to work together and a monolog. It went over four, and then everybody said, Please stop making us do that. Oh, wow. I do remember that.

I remember once or twice getting, Hey, come stay tonight and work on the monolog with us, and me just feeling like out of my depth. Oh, yeah.

That was the worst I ever felt.

Yeah. It's a specific It's a perfect skillset to be that inclusive of broadness while trying to be specific for the person. I don't know how you describe it. You're trying to make so many people happy.

I remember once just sitting with the writers on Thursday, knowing I'd have to write it, but saying, What would you even write a cold open about this week? What's in the news? And everybody, very helpfully, was trying to find things that were less boring. And I remember it was bed bugs in New York and something... They stopped serving giant Diet Coke, and James Anderson just started improvising a musical that was like, Bed bugs are biting. No Diet Coke. It was super crazy. All right, everybody, that was yet another episode. We will see you next week, Seth and the Lonely Island. Goodbye.

Bye.

The Lonely Island and Seth Meyer's podcast is supported by Airbnb.